"I used to be a self--absorbed dork with a better--than--you attitude and a lot of useless expensive junk to prove it, but now I am a self--absorbed dork with a better--than--you attitude, who has learned to be just as much of a self--absorbed dork as ever, but not to spend so much money at it."

That about get it?

"It turns out that having no responsibilities and travelling around Europe and Southeast Asia with an exotic farkbuddy is more enjoyable than sitting alone in a house with some electronic gadgets. Who knew?"

I think I'm gonna have a heart attack and die, that's such a surprise.

Pumpernickel bread:Zen Buddhism basically. This philosophy is nothing new. What I think really happened is this guy really liked the movie "Fight Club" and wanted to be Tyler Durden. His transformation and the release of that movie happened at about the same time.

Back when I was 16 years old, a house fire broke out in my bedroom and gutted the place. It destroyed damn near everything I owned at the time and I was lucky not to have been burned to death when it happened. For days afterward, I had this disorienting sense that my life, up to that point, had been erased. Then I came to my senses and got over it. I'd survived. Nobody in my family had been hurt. We didn't even lose any of our house pets due to smoke inhalation.

So yeah, your stuff is just that. It's not your life. There are more important things in the world. I started to read this guy's article last weekend and put it down after two or three paragraphs because it quickly became obvious that he's a self-important douchebag. My best friend from college is a minimalist. He lives quite simply but he also doesn't make a big deal out of it, and it would never occur to him to lecture anyone else on how to live.

There's nothing Buddhist about this guy. He just replaced material possessions with self-importance. The point of Buddhism isn't to sell your stuff and be poor, it's to cut down on the use of first-person pronouns and to reign in your ego.

See, I had an ingrown toenail that I had (super-minor) surgery on to get fixed, and it still hurt and was bleeding. A med student actually did the operation, since the student health clinic was free, and did not do a great job. Of course, the surgery was three weeks prior, but because I hadn't had solid food in at least that long, the cuts weren't healing. I had a lot of bloody socks though. Also, I couldn't sleep. In part it was because I was shaking a lot, and in part because my stomach was upset even though there wasn't anything in there but water. Not a lot, since I was down 31 lbs in around 25 days.

I didn't have much, certainly no money or food, but was I happy with my minimalist lifestyle? No, not really. Even when I had the bare minimum required, I had to stress out about maintaining that. I had to work a few jobs to make money the room, and while I appreciated the few things I did have, I was miles adrift in a sea of misery. I had next-to-nothing, and I was broke.

Nowadays, I come home to a house, I can grab a snack from my pantry, or a beer from the beer fridge in the garage (I brew my own), and I have a nice couch - 2 in fact - I can throw myself onto like I did with beds when I was a kid. I can grab a game controller, or pick one of the dvd's I've got, or even just watch cable tv. Somewhere I've got a nice internal frame backpack and a tent, and if it's the weekend, I might go camping. Maybe snorkeling? I've got the gear... I've also got a computer, and a laptop, AND a touchpad, and a bunch of electronic toys besides. I've got a good collection of G1 transformers all displayed around my soldering iron and various digital meters. I've got a bookshelf absolutely packed with new and old sci fi, fantasy, and classics. I've even got a motorcycle and a truck and 2 dogs and some cats and a python. Last and not least by a long shot, I'm married - and that's quite the responsibility and expense to maintain.

You know what? All these things make me happy. Sure, I have to pay off my house still, and yeah, I've got to mow the lawn or deal with a broken fence on occasion, I still have to pay for insurance and gas, and heck, I spent last night doing toilet repair, but it's still all worth it. I have so much to entertain me, so many hobbies to explore, so much to do, at the reasonable cost of a brace of hours a day of work or upkeep for the things that help make me happy.

Getting rid of things in order to get rid of real-or-perceived responsibility isn't some sort of panacea that will fix your problems. It's just a way to lower your standards until anything you do have is relatively so much better than the entire rest of your life. Realize it for what it is; Remember the last time you had a fever or flu? How awful it felt? You just wanted to stop feeling puky? Remember how special and magical it felt when the fever broke? How you felt light, and hungry, and a bit tired, but energized nonetheless, and all it was was that you felt normal again? You lowered your standards to the point where 'normal' is special, felt happy when you achieved it, and there's nothing wrong with that. However, just because your normal is a house full of nice stuff and every entertainment avenue is open to you, you don't have to give everything away and restrict all your choices - effectively, get sick - just so you can rank what's left as relatively greater. It shows you as being so shallow as to be incapable of appreciating a thing for what it is, rather than how it compares to the rest of your stuff. It's not a problem with your stuff, it's a problem with YOU. Getting rid of stuff doesn't fix the problem, it just hides it. It doesn't make you better, you haven't changed at all.

The article's author is rich, and can have anything, even if he doesn't possess it right now. That's a bit different than having nothing, not being able to get the things you want, not even being able to sleep, and thinking that by accepting that, you'll be happy.

So when I jump on my couch a cat may choose to use me as furniture, and the dog will start thumping it's tail on the floor every time I move to idly coast through one of 3 zillion channels on the flatscreen tv, I'll occasionally grin, because I'll think to myself, "I could go to sleep if I wanted," and be happy.

Smackledorfer:That travelling the world with no real concern of future needs is superior to be tied down to one location while working most of your waking hours in the hopes that you don't end up bankrupt sometime in the future when you may have kids you need to raise?

Yea, I agree with that.

Well, that would be nice, but no. I was talking about the idea that many of us are consumed with acquiring crap that doesn't really make us happy.

Lollipop165:Another good friend of mine has 2 elementary school kids and they make it at about 800sf - he said that's pretty normal from where he's from in Europe. The fact is, before 1970 or so, the average family lived fine on a house under 1000sf. My own apartment is huge by middle class NYC standards - 1300sf.

Smackledorfer:santadog: When I moved from one state to another to start a business, I sold just about everything I owned off.I've been unencumbered since then.It's true.. don't let your possessions possess you.

From your profile:

Lives: Austin, Texas in the winter and then Estes Park, Colorado in the summer.not buying into consumerism

ActivitiesScootering, hiking, camping, exploring, road trips, photography, playing with my cattle dog, kayaking, wandering... You sound a lot like the author of the article. I could be wrong, as maybe you are living in a tent city in your separate winter and summer home locations. But you sound like someone who is doing fine financially (which most of the nation can't say at this point) while at the same time lecturing about what decisions others make with their money.

I wish I were. I haven't made over poverty for income in over 7 years because of the business. In Austin in the winter, which I haven't done since 2010, I'd work a min wage PT Job just to get me thru winter. It doesn't take much money to "do all that" if you know what to do. Travel lite, don't own much, and all your money can do something else. I don't have kids. Just me and the dog. 1bdrm cabin in the remote woods. $400 per month.Hiking is free. Camping is free. Road trips are cheap. Exploring is free. Dog = cost of food.Note it doesn't say "Cruises to Europe, staying in hotels, fine dinning".I've been to every state except Hawaii, and the Dakotas. I've been to Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.. and at 45, I have never made over $40k a year, and only did that for a couple years.It's all about what you want to do.Me, it's about my dog, my trips, and my camera.

I wish I had that guys money to move around on. I'd go overseas on that scratch.

If he's so non-materialistic now, any chance he could give me that house in Seattle? Considering that people like him helped make it impossible to buy a house here if you aren't a startup millionaire ...

I'm about to become homeless by May 2013 (less than 2 months from now) and I'm not a guy who spends money like I have an infinite supply of it. I'm very thrifty and choose the cheapest brands that does the same thing to an acceptable level.

I could definitely use this story's guy's luck. Ever since I was a kid I knew that even if I became very rich I wouldn't be spending it for the sake of spending, yet look what has happened to me. I'm going to lose everything. The apartment I rent, the piano I play, the computer I work on. Life sucks for me and I don't have anybody to help me get out of this mess.

Maybe if there's some magical life essence out there that provides people with good fortune, now is the time for me to get a taste of a little goodness. Back to job hunting and working I go.

So he's one of those guys who broods in his seat while everyone else is talking about the latest episode of [insert popular television show here] and when asked for his thoughts, reminds everyone condescendingly that he doesn't even OWN a tee-vee.

Why did this overprivileged douche get a Hero tag? He probably still has more than bigmadeupnumber of people living in the US today. He'd really get respect if he gave everything away to people that actually would need it. Maybe charities. Yeah, or maybe poor people. So, frak off, Douchey Dickhead, you're nothing special(unless it ends with Ed).

"I remember when I was a very little girl, our house caught on fire.I'll never forget the look on my father's face as he gathered me upin his arms and raced through the burning building out to the pavement.I stood there shivering in my pajamas and watched the whole world go up in flames.And when it was all over I said to myself, "Is that all there is to a fire?"

Is that all there is, is that all there isIf that's all there is my friends, then let's keep dancingLet's break out the booze and have a ballIf that's all there is"

GreenSun:I'm about to become homeless by May 2013....Maybe if there's some magical life essence out there that provides people with good fortune, now is the time for me to get a taste of a little goodness.

JungleBoogie:"I remember when I was a very little girl, our house caught on fire.I'll never forget the look on my father's face as he gathered me upin his arms and raced through the burning building out to the pavement.I stood there shivering in my pajamas and watched the whole world go up in flames.And when it was all over I said to myself, "Is that all there is to a fire?"

Is that all there is, is that all there isIf that's all there is my friends, then let's keep dancingLet's break out the booze and have a ballIf that's all there is"

Slaves2Darkness:Both you and this author seem to think your lifestyle is superior to everyone else's, this just makes you and him tools. Besides nobody cares, nobody really gives a shiat if you want to pretend it is the 1950's, because this makes you feel superior. We don't care, other then to point out you sound like a douche bag when you talk about your "superior" life style.

What's the quote ... (paraphrased)

I spent my teenage years worrying about what other people thought of me,I spent my working years telling myself I didn't care what other people thought of me,And now that I'm old I realize they were never thinking about me at all.

timmypedersen:GreenSun: I'm about to become homeless by May 2013....Maybe if there's some magical life essence out there that provides people with good fortune, now is the time for me to get a taste of a little goodness.

I got five on it. How much is your rent?

Thank you very much for the kind thought, but it's $1,000 a month since there were three of us living here (but the two of them are leaving in 2 month's time) so the pay was shared. It's time to find a cheaper apartment and a new job. I was working on a pc game project before all of this happened but since the situation has changed, I also have to adapt. After trying to look around the net for other possible solutions, I found out about 3D printing companies like Shapeways. I also found out that I can turn my 3D models into physical figures and sell them through their website.

Mr. Cat Poop:Here's his apartment that cost probably 10 times more than my house just to make it so minimalist.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYV0qATsyts

"We believe we can do this at scale at a reasonable cost."

The cost of contractors alone would exceed the cost of a reasonably sized house. Which would have a full bath and decent-sized kitchen.On the other hand, a used pop-up trailer could offer the same amenities for much, much less.